78 THE NEW PHYSIOLOGY. 



interconnected normals which, as I have already tried 



to indicate, manifest themselves in both bodily structure I 



and bodily activity. 



Now, for the mechanistic physiology there are no 

 interconnected normals, just as in the inorganic world as I 



at present interpreted there are also no interconnected 

 normals. If we look through an average existing text- 

 book of physiology, we find a great deal about the effects 

 of this or that stimulus, a great deal also about the ex- 

 ternal mechanism and chemistry of bodily activity — a 

 great deal, in other words, about what lies on the surface, 

 but never takes us further. Along with this there are 

 perhaps also some inconclusive discussions of the possible 

 mechanism of such processes as physiological oxidation, 

 secretion, growth, muscular contraction, or nervous 

 activity. Very little will, however, be found about j 



what in reality lies still more on the surface, but also 

 penetrates deep down — the maintenance within and 

 around the body of normal organised structure and 

 activity. The maintenance of the normal is something 1 



for which there is no place in the mechanistic physiology, j 



since according to this physiology maintenance must i 



be in ultimate analysis only an accident of structure and j 



environment — a fitful will-o'-the-wisp, which does not 

 concern true science. 



But medicine, as we have seen, is supremely interested 

 in the physiological normal. What a man sees at the 

 bedside is a perversion of the normal, and Nature's 

 attempts to restore it, with what assistance medicine 

 can give. For medicine it is necessary to know the 

 normal in its elastic and active organisation. He who 

 knows how the body regulates its normal temperature 



